Hawthorne’s life during the next three years was essentially domestic. In June, 1846, his son Julian was born--a remarkably vigorous baby--at Doctor Peabody’s house in West Street, Boston; Mrs. Hawthorne wisely preferring to be with her own mother during her confinement. [Footnote: At the age of thirty-five, Julian resembled his father so closely that Nathaniel Hawthorne’s old friends were sometimes startled by him, as if they had seen an apparition. He was, however, of a stouter build, and his eyes were different.] With two small children on her hands, Mrs. Hawthorne had slight opportunity to enjoy general society, fashionable or otherwise. Rebecca Manning says, however: “Neither Hawthorne nor his wife could be said to be ‘in society’ in the technical sense. When the Peabody family lived in Salem, they were, I have been told, somewhat straitened pecuniarily. After Hawthorne’s marriage, I think I remember hearing of his wife going to parties and dinners occasionally. Dr. Loring’s wife was her cousin. Other friends were the Misses Howes, one of whom is now Mrs. Cabot of Boston. Mrs. Foote, who was a daughter of Judge White, was a friend, and I remember some Silsbees who were also her friends. Hawthorne’s wife knew how to cultivate her friends and make the most of them far better than either Hawthorne or his sisters did. I have been told that when Hawthorne was a young man, before his marriage, if he had chosen to enter Salem’s ‘first circle’ he would have been welcome there.” During this last sojourn in his native city Hawthorne was chosen on the committee for the lyceum lecture course, and proved instrumental in bringing Webster to Salem,--where he had not been popular since the trial of the two Knapps,--to deliver an oration on the Constitution; of which Mrs. Hawthorne has given a graphic description in a letter to her mother on November 19, 1848: “The old Lion walked the stage with a sort of repressed rage, when he referred to those persons who cried out, ‘Down with the Constitution!’ ‘Madmen! Or most wicked if not mad!’ said he with a glare of fire.” A pure piece of acting. The national Constitution was not even endangered by the Southern rebellion,--much less by the small band of original abolitionists; and Webster was too sensible not to be aware of this.